It’s them liberals again

April 28, 2010

Remember those Family circus cartoons showing a broken vase on the floor and a frantic-looking toddler telling mom: “It wasn’t me! It was Mr. Nobody” – while the ghost of a mysterious Mr. Nobody scampers past . . .

This being campaign season, well, here we are in Facebook from the Vaughn Ward congressional campaign: “Over the last few days the liberal media has begun attacking us. Please donate today to ensure the we have the resources to combat these liberal attacks. A $5 dollar donation goes a long way in helping us fight the liberal media.”

Liberal, liberal, liberal: One per sentence. A piker (Kevin Richert notwithstanding): Surely Ward can up his booga-booga rate to two per sentence next time. There is a problem here: Since Ward is in a competitive primary election, the beneficiary of his troubles would be another Republican candidate, Raul Labrador, who’s more or less about as conservative as he is. And, anyone complaining that their attackers are a pack of liberals might want to pause at least before implicitly including Dennis Mansfield, wo has aggressively seized on most of these points, in the group.

What’s really happened here is poor campaign management: Most likely, a conclusion months ago on someone’s part that uncomfortable stuff could simply be closeted until after the election, with the result that items easily addressable earlier have turned into political trouble later.

Sooner or later, someone was going to ask and make public where the Ward household income was coming from, since Ward – who isn’t independently wealthy – is spending the year as a full-time candidate. In many a campaign the opposition would have raised the question long ago. (The answer is Ward’s wife, who works for the financial entity Fannie Mae.) From one source or another (in this case, the local newspaper), sooner or later, the question was headed their way. A smarter campaign would have made it visibly public, put it up on their web site, months ago, giving it their own spin.

Property taxes (in Valley County) overdue? Not a huge deal, in one sense. The taxes have apparently been paid since the report came out, the campaign said. But why was this not vetted? Why didn’t someone check to see if the candidate’s taxes were all paid up?

Overuse of Marine imagery without a disclaimer that the military wasn’t supporting the candidate? The rules are standard and candidates all over the country deal with them; did the campaign not check the requirements?

A borrowed truck in Ward’s “truck” TV commercial? Wouldn’t have been a problem had they, in announcing the ad, snuck in a quick word of thanks to the vehicle’s owner in the press release or commercial, instead of uncomfortably trying to explain away the pickup’s real ownership later.

So on it has gone in the last few weeks: This isn’t gotcha stuff, this is campaign management 101. None of these Ward problems in recent weeks were massive issues inherently, but they became bigger because they blew up in the end game, which is what unaddressed political issues, even picayune ones, tend to do.